


sowing seeds of boundless hope (and devotion)

by KeepCalmLoveSeverus



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, Gen, Rule 63, Stucky - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 16:17:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5055412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeepCalmLoveSeverus/pseuds/KeepCalmLoveSeverus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the obligatory tattoo artist AU. Also pinup girls ftw!</p>
            </blockquote>





	sowing seeds of boundless hope (and devotion)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gr8escap](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gr8escap/gifts).



> [steverogersnotebook](http://tmblr.co/mYJnD8d0qGFJYFkljgyD8sw) asked for a Stucky fic based on this lyric:
>
>> Tattoo girl on a butterfly sowing seeds of boundless hope  
> (And devotion)

Stevie sees girls come in all the time asking for butterfly tattoos in all the usual places. It pays the bills, so she doesn’t say anything, but inside she’s wondering why these girls don’t love themselves. A fucking Celtic knot butterfly an inch above your ass crack:  _Really?_

But again. It ain’t Stevie’s job to judge the girls. If they’re drunk, well, then she’s allowed to refuse to ink them –  _state laws, I’m sorry ma’am, yeah they’re a bitch but I don’t wanna lose my license, you could always come back when you’re sober?_

Very few of them do. Stevie don’t feel too bad about it.

Then this doll comes in, hair curled like it’s the forties and she’s got somethin’ to prove, slaps down an old-timey photo of a pretty woman and asks for a pin-up type portrait riding a butterfly right over her left breast. Now there’s a tat Stevie can respect – first of all, it takes her more than three seconds to copy out of a flash book because it’s an original design, and second of all because it’s obvious there’s a story there from before the moment the gal even says, “I want her throwing seeds out of her hand.”

“That’s an interesting detail,” Stevie mutters, tongue sticking out as she sketches a gauzy Tinkerbell-style dress on the pin-up girl. “Any particular reason?”

She doesn’t see the girl – Bucky, she’d introduced herself – make a self-deprecating face, like she can’t believe the sentimental bullshit that’s about to come out of her mouth. “My mom always said ya gotta remember to let love grow in your heart, even if ya hafta plant the seeds yourself. She died last year – that’s her, in the picture.”

“She looks like a hell of a woman,” Stevie smiles, pushing some loose hair out of her face. It’s so fine it never stays in the damn braid. “Ya look like you could be her sister or somethin’.”

Stevie isn’t smooth,  _at all_ , and she winces internally at the obvious pick up line, but Bucky just laughs. “Yeah, we useta get that a lot.”

They lapse into silence as Stevie tries extra hard to get the face right on the sketch – her artistic integrity is on the line here! Plus, not that she’d admit it, but this gal has caught her attention. It’s not just that she’s beautiful, even though she is. It’s the Brooklyn accent and the  _Fuck Off_  attitude and the forties style that actually makes Stevie drool a little in the back of her throat even though she knows she’s got a snowball’s chance in hell of getting her number. (Stevie’s not stupid, she knows what she looks like: scrawny, pale, and weak. At least most of her health issues had resolved themselves after she’d gotten her heart surgery; she hasn’t had an asthma attack in a month and while she’ll never hear properly out of her left ear, that doesn’t really matter.)

“Okay, so,” she clears her throat, pulling herself out of the beginning funk as she finishes the last few lines on the sketch, “If you like this sketch, we can start it tonight, but the color will have to wait till next week when the lines have healed a bit. Watercolor-style is difficult to do on top of black. I can do it,” she hurries on to say, “I just don’t wanna accidentally pull the black into the colors.”

“I get it,” Bucky laughs, eyes probing every line of the proposed design. “This is amazing – I’m definitely ready to get started now.”

“Awesome!” Stevie smiles, throat drying a little as Bucky sits up and strips out of her shirt; she’s still wearing a tank top, but damn if her cleavage doesn’t make Stevie feel like an inappropriate lech. She spins around in her chair, prepping her gun and inks with maybe more attention than she needs to, and misses the small smirk that crosses Bucky’s face.

Two and a half hours later, Bucky’s handing over the first part of Stevie’s fee with a very nice tip and listening to Stevie’s aftercare instructions very intently. When Stevie’s done, she gets up to stretch and put her shirt back on, noticing as she peeks her head out of the room that everyone else seems to have packed up and gone.

“Hey,” Bucky says boldly, making Stevie’s head jerk up from where she’s cleaning her equipment up. “We should, like, go get coffee or somethin’. Y’know, so I don’t faint from low blood sugar and all.”

Stevie swallows and her voice is surprised when she asks, “Yeah?”

“Yeah, punk,” Bucky grins. “You can tell me all about how a skinny gal from Brooklyn ends up doing ink in Manhattan.”

It’s a great night for coffee at Stevie’s local fave – spoken word poetry that doesn’t actually sound like pretentious trash – and she laughs more with Bucky than she can ever remember doing before. And her chest doesn’t get that tight, wheezy feeling all night. Just a tight, tingly feeling – like seeds blooming out of the ground.


End file.
